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G. T. VOOHHEES. ICE MAKING PROCESS. APPLICATION man sEPT.24.19|.

Patented Nov. 18, 1919.

INVENTOR Mam 'ffy/mw.

v nal sectional view of said ice making tank of meenam.

-NTTED sTATEs PATENT onirica.

' emmen T. romanas, or' Nnwroan, n'. r.

ion-MAKING rnociis's.

` specification of Letters raten-t. pawn-ted N9 18, 1919 y Application mea september 24,1917. serial no. ieaosr.

To all whom it may concern.'

'Beit known that l, GARDNER TUFTs VoorirEEs, a citizen of the United States, residing at New York city, in the county of New York, State of New York, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in lce Making Processes, of which the following is a specification.l

My invention relates to improvements in ice making processes in which -ice is frozen from a freezing surface to ice previously` frozen, to thereby reduce the time for freezing a cake of ice of a given thickness' with a freezing medium of a given temperature, or to freeze such a cake of ice in the' same time with a hotter freezing medium.

My invention relates to ice frozen in movable or fixed molds or cans, or to ice frozen under this process in any other desired way.

l attain these objects -by apparatus illustra-ted in the accompanying drawing in which Figure 1 is a diagrammatic cross sectional view of an ice making tank on line C D of Fig. 2. Fig. 2 is a diagrammatic longitudipart of Fig. 1 taken on line A B just belowthe top of the te@ of rig. i. rig. e is a block of ice.- Fig. 4c is the block of ice of Fig. 3 cut apart on the dotted line of Fig. 3, thereby forming two ice blocks A A. Fig. 5 is a diagrammatic longitudinal sectional View of the ice making cans of Fig. 2 and the brine surrounding them, showing dierent ice formation than that of Fig. 2; Figs. 6 and 7 are longitudinal sectional views of a can with .an inverted ice block therein having centering means therefor. Fig. 8 is a longitudinal sectional view of ice .making cans and brine surrounding them having two differentsizes of cans but with somewhat similar ice formations therein as was shown in Fig. 5. Fig. 9 is a plan view of a can with centering means foran inverted block of ice therein and Fig. 10- is a longitudinal sectional view of Fig. 9 taken on line J K of Fig. 9.

lln Fig. 1, 1 isa tank, 2 insulation therefor, 3 can covers, 4 can cover supports, 525", 5, 5d cans, 6 refrigerating coils, 7 brine, 8 water, 9 ice, 10 a header connecting the upper ends of coil 6 11 a header connecting the lower ends of coil 6, 12 refrigerant vapor compressing means, 13 compressed refrigerating vapor condensing means, 111 expansion valve, 15, 19, andf20` pipes, 16 a propeller having a shaft 17 actuated 'by 'a motor 18.

Similar lettering applies to Fig.2.

In Fig. 5, 5e, 5f, 5g, '5h are cans similar to those shown in Fig. 2. ln Fig. 8 cans 5i and 5l are similar to the cans-of Fig. 2, cans 5j and 5k are smaller than the cans 5i andV 5.

The ordinary method of ice makingl is shown inFigs. 1 and 2 wherein a liquefied refrigerant flows from condensing means 13 through pipe 20 to expansion valve 14C and through coils 6, 6 wherein it is varporized, the vapor resulting therefrom .flowing out ofthe upper ends of vcoils 6, 6 through header 10, `and pipe 19 to compressing means 12 whereby it is compressed and dis-.

charged therefrom through pipe 15 to oondensing means 13, wherein it is liquefied,

l which will be clear to those skilled in the art without a more detailed description.

The refrigerant liquid vaporizing in coils 6, 6 cools the brine 7 surrounding them. This brine may be agitated by a propeller 16 ,actuated by a motor 18 through a shaft 17. rlhis cold brine 7 surrounds the cans 5a, 5b, 5., 5d thereby cooling the water theretherefrom through4 header v11 and up" in and freezing it into ice 9. VariousV stages v .i

. paralleled sides but in actual practice it has its sides tapering toward its bottom. This block of ice of Fig. 3 has its thin-nest thickness a.

1 have found from experience and enperiments that with water at 32o F. and with a given temperature o f brine that the .time required to form an ice block like Fig. 3 will be proportional to (a/2)2. lin other words the proportionate time required to freeze such an ice block would be, for a given temperature of brine, starting with water at 32 F. proportional to the square of J2- of its thinnest thickness. lhave also found that with a given temperature of freezing surface that ice lfreezes, from one ratio of 32 minus the temperature of the freezing surface. So ice of a given thickness wouldfreeze twice as fast with a 12 freezing surface as with a 22o freezing surface. From the above, the relative time o'f freezing, or relative production of ice, can be found for any temperature of brine or for any thickness of ice or fortheir combination. For example, if the thickness of b, of Fig. 2 were 1 inch and if the thickness of b2 were 3 inch and if the thickness of b3- were 6 inch then the relative times to have frozen'these thicknesses of ice; b1, b2, b3

would be as (1)2, (3)2, (6)2 or as 1, 9, 36.

Now let thickness b3 equal a/2 of Fig. 3 and let thickness b2 equal of b3. We saw from the above that b2 required 9 units of time to freeze while b3 required 36 units of time to freeze or that b3 required 4 times as long to freeze as did b2. i

Now let us assume'that we have 2 blocks o'f ice as would be formed in the cans of Fig. 2. Let us take these 2 blocks of ice and cut each of them, by any desired means, as was done in Fig. 3, thereby having 4 blocks of ice each like A of Fig. 4. Now take these 4 blocks of ice A and place one of them centrally in each of the cans in Fig. 5. Surround each of these blocks with water 8 and freeze the surrounding water 8 by brine 7 as shown progressively in cans 5e, 5, 52, 5" of Fig. 5. When this is finished, harvest the ice from the 4 lcans and cut 2 of the `finished cakes as those from cans 5g 'and 5h onjlines E F and G H similarly as we cut the ice cake Ain Fig. 3,-place each of these half blocks of ice in one of the 4 cans and repeat as often as desired. f

j Now although we have had nolmore cans .in Fig. 5 than we had in Fig. 2, and no colder brine, yet we have decreased the freezing time required in each of these 4 cans by one half when in Fig. 5, thickness 5:1 of

thickness c. Or with same temperature of brine and same cans we could freeze twice as much ice. Or we could freeze as much ice withl brine at 22 -as with brine at 12, the

' lold way.

In Fig. 8, we could substitute two smaller cans as 5j and 5k for the larger can 5f of Fig.

5 and could freeze the water to ice as is progressively shown, first in these smaller cans, and then place the ice blocks formed therein, one each, 1n cans 5i and 51, and with the same I temperature of brine we could, when 6:4 o,

freeze 2.67 times as much ice as was done the old way in Fig. 5 in cans 5", 5, 52, occupying the same tank space as do cans 5i, 51, 5k, 51, of Fig. 8, or could freeze the same quantity of ice as was done with the three old cans, with 12O brine, the old way, with 24.5o brine, in Fig. 8, in the same time.

' In actual practice the cans taper from the top to the bottom, this taper is somewhat exaggerated in Figs. 6 and 7. It is necessary to have this taper in the ice can 5 so that after thawing the ice it may be readily removed from the can and so that in freezing, the water will have a chance to expand without being.entrapped,'so as to prevent bursting of cans. In Figs. 6 and 7 of a large ice block, cut similarly to that of Fig. 3, has been provided with guide holes L and g, so that it can be centered in can 5 by projections g and by screw f through piece c fitted into can holes at d, d in can 5.

Another method of centering an inverted block of ice which might have come from l can 5k of Fig. 8 in a can like can 5i of Fig. 8 is shown in Figs. 9 and l() where two removable guides are made by fixing angles i and j together as is shown by separating pieces c. By freezing a little ice as is shown in the lower part of Fig. 10 the block of ice 9 will be held centrally so that the centerinn angles and separators can then be removed so that thebalance of the can can be filled with water and the freezing completed.

I prefer to have an upwardly tapering water space between the faces of the' ice slab and the walls of the can as is shown in Fig. 10, to -obviate a tendency that sometimes occurs, of bursting, or deformin a can, when water is entrapped below ic'e rozenover it. But Ican freeze by this process so that the bursting or deforming of a can does not often occur, even if this precaution is not so taken.

It will be clear to those skilled in the art,

without further figures or descriptions that when cans in tanks arev not movable, that the l ice may be thawed loose by heating the brine lby high pressure ammonia in the freezing coil or by any other desired way. If the cans are movable then they may be lifted from the brine by the ordinary hoists and moved to an ordinary thawing apparatus and that there the ice cake is thawed from can and removed from it in the ordinary manner and that an ice cake may be split into two or more slabs by a saw or any other desired means and a slab replaced in the can and the can returned to the brine bathy by the made With a given can space for a higher temperature of brine and therefore for a higher suction pressure and therefore for in creased capacity and economy of the refrigerating machine.

rlhe ice that is formed by this process may be what is known as raw Water ice or what is known as distilled Waterice. The ice so formed may be formed with or Without air or other agitation. The part of the ice first frozen may be raW or distilled. Water ice and the part of the ice secondly frozen may be raw or distilled water ice. The final blocks of ice may be all raw WaterA or all distilled Water ice or may have their inner parts or their outer parts distilled Water or raw Water ice. lt is evident that the Water deficiency of a distilled Water ice making system might be made up by having distilled Water centers or outsides and raw Water outsides or centers.

rlhe cans in the tanks may be movable or liked and may be surrounded by brine or any other cooling means, the refrigerating vcoil 6, 6 may be all inside the tank or partly inside .the tank and partly outside or all outside the tank and the circulation of the brine may be all inside the tank or partly inside and partly outside the tank. Any. desired means of centering or placing the frozen blocks in the cans may be used and any desired shape of can or block may be used, all Without departing from the process of this invention.

l believe l am entitled to claim this process in the broadest possible manner.

ll claim- 1. A process of making and harvesting a built up ice cake in a container, which consists in inserting Water and an ice slab in said container, then subjecting the outside of the container to freezing means until a built up ice cake is formed therein and then removing the built up ice cake from the container in a direction reversed to that in which the ice slab was inserted.

2. A process of making ice which consists of placing a slab of ice in a container' in such manner that a layer of Water surrounding the ice slab will be Widest. at the top and tapering to the bottom and then applying a freezing medium to the Walls of the container until the water enveloping the ice slab is frozen to the walls of the container and to the ice slab.

erkennen T. voonHEEs.

Witnesses M. V. MARsToN, S. C. ABBo'rr. 

